Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home-use crane game machine with which a player wins a prize using a catcher.
Description of the Related Art
There have been crane game apparatuses often seen in amusement arcades which a player controls a crane to catch a prize housed in the crane game apparatus. Many prizes are housed inside the crane game apparatus. A player inserts a coin and controls movement of the crane in lateral and longitudinal directions using control buttons. When the player stops the crane at an arbitrary position, the crane moves down to the bottom at the position with a catcher being opened and then moves up with the catcher being closed, then, the player can get the prize if the catcher catches the prize successfully.
For example, Japanese Patent No. 4787124 describes a home-use crane game machine which comprises: abase part which has a first button for outputting a X-axis motor movable signal, a second button for outputting a Y-axis motor movable signal, and a main substrate having a control device; a housing part disposed on the base part which is transparent and has a housing space for housing prizes in the inside; and a crane part which has a catcher having a bottom part formed in the teeth shape and a standing wall plate vertically protruding on the side of the bottom part, and a crane main body for controlling the movement of the catcher along X-axis direction, Y-axis direction and Z-axis direction.
However, a long period of use of the home-use crane game machine may cause problems, such as grease drying up applied to gears inside the crane main body, or gears/shafts jamming due to accumulated dust. When the crane main body and/or catcher stop working due to such problems, the player sometimes moves them forcibly by hand. This often causes breakage of the crane main body and/or catcher.